


The Soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Canon Compliant, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 21:15:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here's my entry for the Xander round of maleslashminis. For brutti_ma_buoni who requested: Xander/Ben; beer, medical emergency (trivial or crisis, up to you), Glory; no non-con or Anya bashing</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep

Ben wakes up behind the wheel of his car with a crick in his neck. He doesn’t know where he is. He ought to be used to this by now, waking up in strange places with no memory of what’s happened in the past few hours. He isn’t. 

Ben wonders what She’s done this time, what She needed here. The tank is sitting on E, and Ben is pretty sure he’s not in L.A. anymore. Thank God he doesn’t have to be at the hospital at ass o’clock tomorrow morning for once.

Across the street, the neon sign of the Fabulous Ladies Night Club blinks pink and gold. Ben needs to find out where he is, and he figures a drink won't hurt either. “Let’s see how fabulous those ladies really are,” he says too loudly to the empty car, and his hands tremble when he opens the door.

The guy behind the bar is wearing a black, cabled sweater vest over an orange, long sleeved shirt. He has a nice smile and dark hair that curls up at the nape of his neck, and he looks like he turned eighteen just yesterday. “What’s your poison?” the guy says.

Ben says, “Whatever’s on tap.”

“Bud Light it is.” The guy slowly fills a glass, tongue caught in the corner of his mouth as the froth rises to the top and spills over the side. “Sorry. Ricky’s out sick. Expect no juggled whiskey bottles. I’m usually back in the kitchen.”

“This place has a kitchen?” Ben can’t keep the note of horror from his voice.

The guy leans across the bar and whispers conspiratorially, “Under no circumstances should you order the shrimp cocktail.” He jerks a thumb towards the men’s room and grimaces.

Ben laughs. “Thanks for the warning, man.”

“Xander,” the guy says, and he shakes Ben’s hand with a sure grip.

Ben can feel the tension in his belly uncoiling a bit, the beer and the conversation taking the edge off his unease. “Ben,” he says and watches Xander rub down the pitted wood of the bar. The house music is dialed down low, and the place is empty except for a woman sitting at a table near the stage. “So, where are the fabulous ladies?”

Xander pauses and slings the rag across his shoulder. “It’s not so much that the ladies are fabulous. They’re more the middle-aged, sweaty-grabby hands kind of ladies. The club is fabulous _for_ the ladies. Anyway, dancing starts at nine. Hence the crickets.”

Ben still doesn’t know where he is or what he did last night—what She did last night. He woke up alone, but he knows her minions are out there somewhere, watching him from a dark corner. When Ben was a child, he was convinced that monsters came to his window at night while he was sleeping. “Monsters aren’t real, sweetie,” his mom had said. “Nothing’s peeking in your window.” But they are real, and they were looking. Ben’s skin crawls, and he can’t help a quick glance behind himself at that thought.

“You alright there, Ben?” Xander asks.

“Yeah.”

Xander gives him an odd look when he doesn’t elaborate, but shrugs it off. “So what brings you to the bustling metropolis of Oxnard, Ben?”

And that’s the million dollar question right there. Ben can’t imagine that anything in Oxnard is of any interest to Her. “Just passing through,” Ben says.

Xander sighs. “Lucky dog.”

Xander’s chatty, and he’s certainly no hardship to look at, and ten minutes into Xander’s story of the road trip that never was, Ben’s surprised to discover that he’s actually having a good time, invasion of the body snatchers notwithstanding. “But where are you staying?” Ben says. “Even some roach motel has to eat up whatever you’re planning to put towards a new car.”

“Ricky took pity on me when he caught me coming out of St. Michael’s shelter around the corner the day after he hired me. He lets me crash in the dressing room,” Xander says, filling Ben’s glass again. “It’s a sweet set-up. Shower, cable TV, and access to all the sequins I could ever need.”

“Ricky sounds like a generous guy.”

Xander leans across the bar again, close enough that Ben can smell his shampoo, and says, “Honestly, I think he just wants to get into my pants.” He grins, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck, and Ben is almost one hundred percent certain that Xander is flirting with him.

Ben hasn’t slept with a guy since undergrad, or much of anyone at all really, but he can’t deny that he’s interested in Xander. He’s tired of Her stealing from him—his time, his body, his life—and he needs to have something now that She’s never touched. Just one moment that belongs solely to him, one moment that’s entirely under his control. Ben lets a little of his desire for Xander show, and there’s something like fear on Xander’s face before his eyes grow dark and speculative.

“You going to take Ricky up on his offer?” Ben says over the rim of his glass.

Xander shakes his head. “Nah. Tony Harris Rule Number One: Don’t shit where you eat, my friend.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s Ween.”

“Dad’s been threatening to sue for his cut of the royalties for years.” Xander splays his palms on the bar and leans in. “I know I’ve got the whole spilling your guts thing backwards here, but I’m kinda new to the gig, so forgive me.” He pauses for so long that Ben isn’t sure he’s going to finish his sentence, and then Xander says, “I’m not taking _Ricky_ up on any offers.”

Ben covers one of Xander’s broad hands with his own and laces their fingers together. “When you’re done here, you need any help counting those sequins?”

Xander takes a deep breath and squeezes Ben’s hand, his thumb stroking the pulse point on Ben’s wrist. “It’s a date.”

After that the bar fills up, and Xander gets busy. Ben watches him work, watches him charm the crowd even though mixology is clearly not his calling. Xander makes a bevy of bridesmaids drink glasses of water before he serves them any more white zinfandel, and he calls a cab for a guy who can barely stay on his feet, and he generally proves himself to be one of the nicest guys Ben’s met in a long time. He starts to hope that what they’re planning to do tonight might turn into more than just hooking up. 

Xander flicks the lights for last call, and the music stops abruptly as the club starts to empty. Ben helps him stack chairs and wipe down tables, and then finally, finally Xander leads him through a door on stage right and into the dressing room. All the strippers have long since cleared out, but the room still smells like cigarette smoke and baby oil.

“Just so you know,” Xander says, “I’ve never really done anything like this before.”

Ben curls one hand around Xander’s jaw and tilts his face up. “That’s okay,” he says. “I have.”

Ben licks into the wet heat of Xander’s mouth, and Xander fists his hands in Ben’s shirt. He kisses back with no hesitation, his tongue flicking over Ben’s palate, his teeth sharp in Ben’s bottom lip. They kiss for what seems like hours—until Ben’s mouth is swollen and his face is raw with stubble burn. Ben can’t remember the last time he enjoyed a kiss so much.

Xander may not have done anything like this before, but he gets with the program pretty quickly. They lose their clothes faster than Ben expected, and then he grips Xander’s cock and strokes until Xander’s gasping and shuddering against him.

“Wait,” Xander pants out. “I want to touch you, too.” 

Xander’s hand feels good on Ben’s cock. He jerks Ben slow and steady, his thumb making circles at the tip on the upstroke. Xander’s hips stutter against Ben’s, and then he comes in a hot mess on Ben’s belly. Xander drags his fingers through his own come, slicking up Ben’s cock and stroking faster. Ben doesn’t last long.

After, Xander rolls over and sprawls flat on his back, a slightly dazed expression on his face. “If I’d known gay sex was that awesome, Larry would not have graduated a virgin.”

Ben laughs and is in the middle of telling Xander how much more awesome gay sex can be when he feels himself begin to recede before the intensity of Her presence. He struggles against Her for as long as he can—a fraction of a second, maybe—and then he is subsumed in Her obliterating glory.

Ben wakes up in his own bed with the covers pulled up to his chin. He’s nearly late for his shift in the E.R. Once he’s on the clock, Ben barely has time to breathe: a little girl needs three stitches down her shin; a mechanic stepped on a rusty nail and hasn’t had a tetanus shot in years; a toddler shoved a marble up his nose. When he finally gets a moment to himself, he thinks, “She’s already overdone it, taking over twice in less than twenty four hours. I’ll go back tonight, and this time She won’t interrupt us.” For the rest of Ben’s shift, the nurses tease him about his good mood. 

The Fabulous Ladies Night Club is in full swing when Ben pulls into the parking lot. He wades through the pack of soccer moms bellied three deep up to the bar, but Xander isn’t pouring drinks tonight.

“He goes on break at midnight,” the bartender shouts over thrumming bass. Ben assumes he must be Ricky. “Out back under the awning.” 

Ben buys a drink to kill the time, and when the new day rolls around, his beer has gone warm and flat in his grip. Behind the club, Xander is standing under the awning with a couple of smokers. His T-shirt is damp at the hem, his face partially obscured in shadows.

“Hey,” Ben says. “I meant to call you, but I didn’t get your number last night." The smokers chuck their cigarettes on the stoop before walking back inside.

“Do I know you?” Xander says, and he sounds confused. He steps out from under the awning. In the orange glow of the streetlight, Ben realizes that Xander doesn’t recognize him. He thinks he might throw up.

“Sorry,” Ben says, and the words are painful in his throat. “I thought you were somebody else.”

“No problem,” Xander says and goes back inside the club. The door shutting behind him echoes in the alleyway. Another sound reverberates on concrete—the skitter of gravel, a single footstep—and Ben runs toward the source.

Her minions, two of them, are pressed into the space between the dumpster and the brick wall. Ben hauls one of them up and slams it into the wall. “What did She do?” he says, his voice raw.

“Only what Her Magnificence must always do to protect Herself, sir,” the minion gasps.

Ben slams him into the wall again, and the impact breaks the skin on Ben’s knuckles. The pain feels good. “No! That spell only makes people forget they saw me becoming Her. This is something else. What the fuck did She do?”

The other demon tugs at his sleeve. Its fingers feel disgusting on his skin even through that layer of fabric. “Please, sir. Glorificus was concerned that your interest in this man would prove to be Her undoing. She could feel your affection for him despite being buried deep within your mind. Even Her Most Beauteous Majesty cannot predict how effective the memory spell might prove after repeated use on the same human. She felt it best to end your relationship now before She could be exposed.”

Ben closes his eyes. He takes one long and ragged breath and makes up his mind. “Then make me forget, too!” He rattles the demon until its teeth shake. “Please.”

Ben wakes up on his bathroom floor. His last memory is of leaving the hospital three days ago. He wonders where he’s been, what She’s done.


End file.
